Three of Accomack County’s 15 volunteer fire and rescue companies have not received county subsidies totaling more than $370,000 because they have not submitted audited financial statements to the county.

Melfa, Tangier and Parksley’s fire companies currently are not in compliance with the county’s audit policy, but Melfa and Tangier have engaged an auditor who has begun work, said Mike Mason, Accomack County finance director.

“I do not know what the current status of Parksley is in regards to an audit,” he said.

In February, the Board of Supervisors authorized Mason to withhold funds from organizations that have not submitted audited financial statements to the county within nine months of the fiscal year end.

At the time, four fire companies — Parksley, Saxis, Melfa and Greenbackville — were not in compliance.

The policy applies to nearly three dozen organizations that receive operational subsidies of $10,000 or more a year from Accomack County, not just to the fire companies.

Accomack typically distributes funds to the companies twice a year, in February and July.

The county has not provided any money to Parksley Volunteer Fire Department for more than two years because of its failure to comply with the policy, Mason said.

When the county in 2012 conducted a survey of organizations receiving subsidies, only one fire company, Greenbackville, said its financial records had been audited by a licensed accountant in the previous two years. Another, Chincoteague, was in the process of undergoing an audit at the time.

Beyond the fire companies, all but one organization — the Eastern Shore SPCA, which received $1,200 a year in county funds — had been audited during the period.

The Board of Supervisors approved the policy in 2011.

The amount budgeted in fiscal year 2016 for operating subsidies to fire companies totals $1.5 million.

But the fire companies’ revenue includes other sources besides the county funds, such as insurance billing for ambulance calls and donations.

“Any company who runs a significant number of ambulance calls likely generates more revenue from insurance billing than it receives in county funds,” Mason said.

Matthews said the county funds make up a “very small” portion of Parksley Volunteer Fire Department’s budget.

The amounts being withheld from each of the three companies currently out of compliance are:

•$20,404 for Tangier.

•$115,840 for Melfa.

•$236,077 for Parksley.

If the companies comply, the Board of Supervisors will have to take action to re-appropriate the money before they can be paid; the appropriation lapsed at the end of the fiscal year on June 30, Mason said.